The Kanyakumari Express reached Tamil Nadu’s Maniyachi junction. Bursts of chilly winds from Courtallam falls had air conditioned the station. Leaves rustled ready to tell a story of patriotic valour. I travelled several decades back.
Seated in a first class compartment was Ashe, the European collector, unaware he was on his last train journey. Like a flash a rebellious, gun-toting young man surprised that ‘firangi’ and shot him at point blank twice, fulfilling his oath that he will massacre the British officers of Tirunelveli. Ashe died instantaneously. Another shot followed before long. His mission as a member of the Bharatha Matha Association accomplished, the assailant bolted into the station toilet and shot himself.
Slowly, the gun smoke lifted away. The engine whistled, signalling its readiness. A bearded youth shot into the coupe. Not with a revolver but with my breakfast tray from the vegetarian refreshment room. The idli offered was bullet-hard. The chutney hot, capable of making even a pacifist into a rebel. “Is that toilet still there?” I asked the one who served. “Which toilet sir?” he asked, face befuddled. “Don’t you know? The one where Vanchinathan shot himself.” “Vanchinathan?” he asked, passing my query to the ticket examiner who had just hopped in. “Which Vanchinathan sir? Was he a station staff? D’you know his initials? And why did he shoot himself?” “He was a rebel .. Died in 1911, in the toilet of Maniyachi.” “1911? That is way back, sir. I wasn’t even born then.”
I was not in a mood to narrate the bloody incident of 17 June 1911, when three gunshots were fired, in the impeccable style of Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, though the ticket examiner sat on the seat, ears flapping for my narration. “Aren’t you a local man? Certainly, you must have heard of that freedom fighter. Vanchinathan, the martyr.”
He looked embarrassed. But only for a moment. “I’m not interested in history ... History means looking back. What for? What good will one gain from remembering Ashoka and Alexander, Babur and Akbar? Or Vanchinathan, your hero? Nothing sir. I always look into the future ... the problems it may have in store, the roses or prickly thorns that may bristle on the path.” He seemed to have lost interest in me and my babble. He opened his newspaper in a marked manner. And began reading a news item, may be on the proposed increase in dearness allowance for railwaymen.
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